MySQL

MySQL is a global system from Oracle that’s used to manage databases. It’s based on re­la­tion­al algebra and is mainly used to store web service data. Well-known CMS that use MySQL include WordPress and TYPO3.

MySQL is, as the name suggests, is an SQL-based database man­age­ment system or DBMS. The open-source software is now main­tained by Oracle, the company that also developed the Java pro­gram­ming language.

MySQL can store, manage, and display data in tables. It works as a client-server system. While the database acts as a server on which all relevant in­form­a­tion is stored, the software can be looked at as the client. Using the software, users of the re­la­tion­al database can formulate various queries in the SQL query language and send them to the database system. These are then processed by MySQL, which is why data access is also an important component of MySQL

MySQL is char­ac­ter­ised by a high degree of platform in­de­pend­ence. You can use MySQL on more than 20 different platforms, including the popular operating systems Windows, macOS, and Linux. Plus, in­stalling MySQL is super easy.

MySQL was developed in 1994 by the Swedish company MySQL AB and was released one year later. The name of the database system is made up of the first name of the founder’s daughter (My) and the central language for the database system (SQL). The database system is pro­grammed in the pro­gram­ming languages C and C++. The current version MySQL 8 is available since 2018.

The company MySQL AB was bought by Sun Mi­crosys­tems in 2008. Sun Mi­crosys­tems was in turn acquired by Oracle two years later. To this day, MySQL is main­tained and further developed by Oracle. Shortly before the ac­quis­i­tion, MariaDB, a spin-off of MySQL, was created under the lead­er­ship of MySQL founder Michael Widenius. This time, the founder based the name on the name of his younger daughter, Maria.

Since MySQL was taken over by Oracle, however, the database system has been cri­ti­cised more often. Mainly this is due to constant changes between the free and the paid version of the database system. Because of this, MariaDB and MySQL are in constant com­pet­i­tion with one another.

Databases are used to represent real-life data sets in a non­con­tra­dict­ory, logically coherent, and con­sist­ent manner. The database man­age­ment system MySQL is based on the so-called re­la­tion­al algebra. Here, the data records are rep­res­en­ted in tabular form and linked with one another. The advantage of this is that re­dund­ancy is avoided by using smaller data sets. The handling of du­plic­ates is also sim­pli­fied.

The re­la­tion­ships between the data can be queried using SQL. There are a number of different commands that you can use to select and evaluate the data, or to enter it in new tables.

MySQL is an integral part of the so-called LAMP stack. This describes a set of tech­no­lo­gies used for web services, like Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. The database system is mainly used to store web service data in re­la­tion­al tables. A separate table is created for each data record. Queries can then be for­mu­lated using re­la­tion­al algebra and the SQL query language, allowing you to link data records from several tables with one other.

MySQL is also used by some large companies such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. And many content man­age­ment systems like WordPress or TYPO3 are based on MySQL and use its database man­age­ment system.